Tag: #painting

Mr and Mrs C. had been married for such a long time that now they had started to reverse-count the time, until death would actually do them apart.
The connection between them had always been powerful, but it reached its peak in the exact moment when, walking down the 4th route, they had both seen it.

They stared at it incredulous, then they glazed at each other. What was beyond belief in their eyes was that nobody else seemed to be aware of the remarkable scene right in front of them. Not the smart man in an elegant stovepipe hat, not the two gentlewomen chatting in a low voice, not even those two arm-in-arm newlyweds, even though they looked just like young Mr and Mrs.

It was drizzling. 18:30, it was starting to get dark; and despite the sunset was being hidden by the clouds up in the dimmed sky, Mrs C. thought there were no excuses for not being able to see what was going on. That was the truth: every other person, whether they were outwalking or simply strolling down the promenade, whether their mind was wandering or they looked light-hearted, whether they were old or young, none of them seemed to have even looked at it. They weren’t just ignoring it: somewhat, it was invisible for everyone, but Mr and Mrs.

The lady gently pulled her husband’s arm.
“Dear… What do you think we should do?”. The man frowned and mumbled.
They looked at each other right in the eyes.
Her eyes were at loose ends, pretty confused. She did feel she had to help in some way, she just didn’t know how.
His eyes were the eyes of a little kid about to dive off a cliff. Those were the eyes of a concerned man, who yet is about to do something he won’t easily forget.

He settled his top hat, lightly nodded to his wife and, after leaving her the umbrella, he reached it.

By the time he crossed the street and got closer, he saw how it was really not a statue. His face was turned downwards and, kneeled down, he kept his hands right on his thighs. He was naked, except for a piece of white cloth around his bottom and lower abdomen and a spine crown on his wavy and dark-haired head.

“Sir, excuse me. Are you okay?”, Mr C. asked him.
He waited a few seconds, which felt interminable, for an answer that eventually he did not get.
He turned around to give a glance to his wife, who had stood still and perplexed on the pavement across the street. She shook her head as to tell him she didn’t quite know what to do next; he decided to give it another try.

“I know you can hear me. You look cold, would you like a coat on?” Mr C. proposed him, as he mimed taking off his own coat.

Mr C. kindly stirred the man’s shoulder. Still no answer.

“Look… I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I don’t even know if you understand what I’m saying. Dear God, I do wonder what the matter is with you.”
The poor husband stood there, down next to him for a few next moments. He couldn’t even hear that dark-skinned man breath, but his gray eyes were a little open and facing the ground.

At last, Mr C. decided to leave a banknote right to his right and go back to his wife. “Did it say something?”
“He didn’t say a word.”

But what poor Mr C. did not see was the dark circles under that man’s reddish and tired eyes, his broken teeth and the little but deep holes he had in his upper arm.

“It’s so simple, my dear friend! Read her eyes and look into her soul: she wants you to belong to her and she wants to belong to you!”

Those words got stuck in John’s head, and they had been doing so since their speaker, Mr V, pronounced them. And now, as he proceeded to dance with her and had to search for her face because she kept her eyes down, John realised he did agree with Mr V. Mr V was completely right and he understood that when it was too late.

“Please Annie… Look at me.” He begged in vain.

Graceful and elegant, she continued to dance on the top of her bare feet, careful not to step onto the incredibly clear puddle next to her.

“Mrs Annie… You may desire an umbrella to hold!” Her old servant said.

“Why should have I? It isn’t raining.” She whispered. Or maybe she screamed. John couldn’t really tell: when you’re in love, everything sounds like a harmless and soft whispering.

“Annie, I implore you… Look at me. One last time.” John’s voice was just like a broken record player.

Her breasts against his, her velvet glove on his shoulders, her face turned around, her hair wrapped up, her bare back and her shapely backside. She was the most genuine and charming creature John’s eyes had ever had the pleasure to see.

“Sir, what are you talking about?”. John was quite perplexed: before Annie’s governant, now Mr V… What did it all mean?

Mr V said something that John couldn’t hear because Annie dragged him away. Finally, but still keeping her face distant, she told him: “Now they won’t disturb us”.

They were far enough to be kissing and not be seen, so John seized that moment and decided to stop their dance and lend towards the woman’s lips. He had been telling himself: “Okay, now I’m stopping… now I am…” when he realised he couldn’t, he just wasn’t able to. His mind didn’t control anymore his legs, they were moving by themselves and this paralysed John’s features.

“Do not try to stop, you won’t”. Annie said effortlessly.

The last thing John’s eyes saw were her, the woman he had always loved and cared for. He couldn’t move; Annie was his mastermind, John was her puppet. At the end, he really did belong to her.

In a café. That’s where it all started and it all ended: poor Mademoiselle Charlotte had been left alone once again, sat on the narrow and uncomfortable couch, facing that rounded glass filled with a high-alcoholic drink. She didn’t even remember what she had ordered but it didn’t matter anymore because she didn’t care; and she hated herself for it. She had always been the “special” girl, the “different” and “unique” one. Also “lunatic” and “insane”, but she preferred taking them as compliments: at least she was not like any other woman!

But now, sat on that wretched couch, facing her forgotten drink, Mademoiselle Charlotte was just like any other person in that café: lost but not confused, tired but not exhausted, angry but not evil.

She didn’t care about anything going on anymore and pretended not to notice even when a gentleman sat just next to her, with a pipe between his lips, a bushy and dingy beard and wearing a wrinkly bowler hat.

“Madame… are you all right?”

“Mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît.” She said, keeping on looking at the void.

“Desolé. You look suffering. Are you sure everything is fine?”

“Non, monsieur. Nothing is fine, but I would be surprised otherwise. Would you leave me alone now?”

The man stood up and angrily mumbled something about how her supposedly unsatisfactory intimate life was not a pretext for her to be such a hateful and unfriendly mademoiselle. Pas vraiment française.

Charlotte sighed and went back to her thoughts, which weren’t actual thoughts, but she’d rather desire them to be. She, educated and cultured, needed to think all the time. She was different.

Was she, actually? Julien, her last lover, had abandoned her just like he did to any other woman he had. That made her one of the many. They had met in that classy café a couple of hours before, he had told her those cliché excuses and, after an hypocrite kiss on her cheek, he left. She hated herself and she hated him. He made her realise that, after all, she was not so special.

A Sun ray woke up Eloise. She frowned and turned her face the other way, under her pillow. She knew he had left, she felt his void next to her, but didn’t dare open her eyes. She didn’t want to find that out, she didn’t want it to be true.

Eloise had always been like that: instead of facing her problems, she preferred to stop caring about them and just pretend they didn’t even exist in the first place. That wasn’t really a problem, but surely she would rather like to be in a different situation.

The Sun out of her window kept kissing her cheeks, persistent and unwavering. Eloise couldn’t do anything but grumble and eventually stand up.

Once on her feet, she finally faced the open window and the light that came from there. Hypnotically, she smiled and, step by step, got closer to it.

What she saw, why she suddenly smiled and what at… well, we shall never know. Our view stops right here; the camera that’s been recording the whole time won’t move anymore. We are left with the view of her unmade bed, that sunshine ray which cuts the room in a half and, supposedly, takes away Eloise. But actually, we don’t know what happened next and we never will. Eloise, that as beautiful as inconsciously fearful and fragile girl; Eloise, her golden hair and her olive skin which seemed to reject those kisses, wherever they were from; Eloise, that once in her lifetime, had perhaps learnt to face her problems.

They had been walking for a very long time; neither of them two realised they had spent two hours of their lives just walking side to side, with their arms around each others’ waist.

They both couldn’t be older than 60 years each and their love had lasted for about fourty years. But, if you asked them, they would tell you that just as those two hours spent walking felt like a couple of minutes, the same went for those four decades they had decided to face together.

The sparks of the rising moon enlightened her features. Silently and calmly, a tear was brought to her cheeks. He took her face in his hands and wiped away that tear. She closed her eyes and put her hands on one of his. Don’t you cry, my love – he said. She swiftly nodded and pretended to put herself together.

When I’m gone, don’t you cry – she said. He smiled and wrapped his long and mighty arm around her; he wanted to protect her, he did want and if he could, he would have given his own life to save her. Still, that’s not how it works. The victims are randomly chosen and, if you’re one of them, the only thing you can do is to agree with this judgement and hope you’ll be taken away as late as possible.

Once in their unlucky lives, that evening seemed endless. Every single light, shade, reflexion… it was all contributing to create something which he would later grab onto. Her sweet brown eyes, her pale face which still found the strenght to blush when she was with him, her pretty slim lips. But he preferred focusing on the colourful leaves on the trees and the welcoming ground they had their feet on and the delightful mood she was able to give birth to. That’s all he would be left with, eventually.

Linnet looked down her whisky glass; she closed her eyes, those deep and weary eyes, as she drank. The bartender smiled at her and Linnet couldn’t understand if that was the smile of someone who had pity on her, a young woman of an unusual beauty who was being destroyed by the alcohol she kept snarfing and her obsessing thoughts, or if he was just joyful.

“Another one, please”, she said as she handed out her now empty glass.

Linnet had her head in her hands and was just about to fall asleep, when a young and handsome man entered the diner. He was wearing a nice fedora and an elegant suit, which made him look like someone who ran a business; he, whose name was Finley, went next to Linnet and sat on the chair closest to hers.

She, on the other hand, didn’t even look at him, and only turned her head when he took her glass away and, instead, put his hand in hers. She faked a smile and went back again to her whisky glass.

“I missed you.”

“No, you didn’t. You just missed the idea of me being under your power.”

“I love you.”

She distanced her glass and a tired and false smile appeared on her lips. Then she drank the last sip, laid that whisky glass on the counter and went to the door. Finley stood up and looked at her on the doorstep. Linnet turned her face and whispered, in a charismatic but, still, emotionless way: “I love you too”. She walked out the building and Finley lost her again in the dark night that the city of New York had wrapped around them.